scholarly journals Teaching the Romanian neighbors Hungarian: language ideologies and the Debrecen Summer School

Multilingua ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Attila Gyula Kiss

AbstractThis article is a contribution to the hitherto scant literature on learning a historical minority language and on language ideologies in the context of a study abroad program in Hungary, Debrecen. I analyse the language ideologies of the decision makers in Hungary and in the Debrecen Summer School in relation to the teaching of Hungarian to the neighboring peoples. Drawing on interactional data of participants from Romania, the perspective of learning Hungarian as a historical minority language is examined. The present article combines a historical approach with language ideologies by focusing on an institution offering language education. Language ideologies are presented as they appear in the larger historical discourses, contemporary documents, and media interviews. I briefly outline the major turning points in the history of the institution which also reflects the changing language ideologies and cultural politics of Hungary. The qualitative discourse analysis of interviews and the conclusion of this ethnographic study demonstrate that language ideological positions in relation to the teaching and learning of Hungarian have been firmly located in historical and cultural contexts. Discourse analysis of various data demonstrates that, on the one hand, the course providers have espoused competing ideologies of who the learners should be as well as how to present the country and the culture, while, on the other hand, showing that the learners have had to negotiate prejudice and stereotype rooted in discourses about the often burdened history.

Author(s):  
Sara Vogel ◽  
Ofelia García

Translanguaging is a theoretical lens that offers a different view of bilingualism and multilingualism. The theory posits that rather than possessing two or more autonomous language systems, as has been traditionally thought, bilinguals, multilinguals, and indeed, all users of language, select and deploy particular features from a unitary linguistic repertoire to make meaning and to negotiate particular communicative contexts. Translanguaging also represents an approach to language pedagogy that affirms and leverages students’ diverse and dynamic language practices in teaching and learning. Translanguaging theory builds on scholarly work that has demonstrated how colonial and modernist-era language ideologies created and maintained linguistic, cultural, and racial hierarchies in society. It challenges prevailing theories of bilingualism/multilingualism and bilingual development in order to disrupt the hierarchies that have delegitimized the language practices of those who are minoritized. Translanguaging concepts have been deepened, built upon, or clarified as scholars have compared and contrasted them with competing and complementary theories of bilingualism. Scholars debate aspects of the theory’s definition and epistemological foundations. There are also continued debates between scholars who have largely embraced translanguaging and those who resist the theory’s premises or have accepted them only partially. The use of translanguaging in education has created the most interest, and yet the most disagreement. Many educators working on issues of language education—the development of additional languages for all, as well as minoritized languages—have embraced translanguaging theory and pedagogy. Other educators are weary of the work on translanguaging. Some claim that translanguaging pedagogy pays too much attention to the students’ bilingualism; others worry that it could threaten the diglossic arrangements and language separation traditionally posited as necessary for language maintenance and development. Translanguaging as a sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic theory has much to offer to our understandings of the languaging of bilinguals because it privileges bilingual performances and not just monolingual ones. As a pedagogical practice, translanguaging leverages the fluid languaging of learners in ways that deepen their engagement and comprehension of complex content and texts. In addition, translanguaging pedagogy develops both of the named languages that are the object of bilingual instruction precisely because it considers them in a horizontal continua as part of the learners’ linguistic repertoire, rather than as separate compartments in a hierarchical relationship.


2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 192-206
Author(s):  
Nicole Dołowy-Rybińska ◽  
Michael Hornsby

In many situations of minority language education, the focus has been on gains in the absolute numbers of speakers, with the result that less attention has been paid to the processes and linguistic outcomes associated with students in these educational programmes. In this article, we initiate a discussion on the revitalization situations in Brittany and Kashubia from a comparative perspective. In particular, we look at the different models of education in each of these regions and examine ethnographic data that highlight the attempts of students to attain legitimate ‘speakerhood’ of the minority languages in question. In particular, we take into the consideration the difficulties associated with these situations of attempted additive multilingualism when the general trend, among the majority populations, is toward standardized monolingualism. By way of a conclusion, we attempt to evaluate the different educational systems in both regions in terms of the production of future generations of ‘successful’ Kashubian and Breton speakers by examining the various language ideologies that are apparent in both situations of language revitalization.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Liu

Due to the rapid development of teaching and learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL), on the one hand, and the arrival of positive psychology (PP) in the process of language education, on the other hand, student engagement has been burgeoned and got a noteworthy role in the academic field. The present review attempts to investigate the relationship of grit with students’ L2 engagement, by examining both backgrounds and consequences of grit. Consequently, the effectiveness of findings for policymakers and academic experts is discussed, along with the prominence of strengthening grit in the scholastic contexts in order to cultivate character in learners and improve their prospects.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 325-351
Author(s):  
Mara R. Barbosa

ABSTRACT Language ideologies are the shared frameworks through which groups understand language and speakers (GAL; WOOLARD, 2001; WOOLARD, 1998). In educational settings, these ideologies may impact learning as teachers who adhere to ideologies favoring monolingualism may undermine students’ identities and bilingual development in favor of assimilation. Using language ideology and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) frameworks, this study investigated the presence of different language ideologies in pre-service Spanish teachers’ discourse and their positioning in face of these language ideologies. The analysis demonstrated that while pre-service Spanish teachers challenge the ideology of monolingualism and favor bilingualism, they also legitimate the ‘one language’ ideology that entails that the unity of a nation depends partly on the use of only one language.


2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-109
Author(s):  
Attila Kiss

Language ideologies surrounding the learning of historical minority languages deserve more/closer attention because due to the strong nation state ideology, the relation between majority and minority languages has long been problematic, and native speakers of majority languages do not typically learn the languages of the minorities voluntarily. This article discusses the language ideologies of voluntary learners of Swedish and Hungarian in two contexts where these languages are historical minority languages. Data was collected at evening courses in Oradea, Romania and Jyväskylä, Finland on which a qualitative analysis was conducted. In the analysis, an ethnographic and discourse analysis perspective was adopted, and language ideologies were analyzed in their interactional form, acknowledging the position of the researcher in the co-construction of language ideologies in the interviews. The results show that the two contexts are very different, although there are also similarities in the language ideologies of the learners which seem to be significantly influenced by the prevailing historical discourses in place about the use and role of these languages. In the light of resilient historical metanarratives, I suggest that the challenges related to the learning of historical minority languages lie in the historical construction of modern ethnolinguistic nation-states and the present trajectories of such projects. At the same time, the learning of historical languages in contemporary globalized socio-cultural contexts can build on new post-national ideologies, such as the concept of learning historical languages as commodities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 126-145
Author(s):  
Łukasz Kumięga

The paper offers an attempt at including the critical-discursive perspective in the reflection  on vocational language education in Germany; its aim is to outline a base for critical foreign language didactics drawing on the critical and post-Foucauldian discourse analysis. The first part of the paper forms  a reconstruction of the enmeshment of vocational language education in a number of contexts (political,  migrational, and integrative). Constituting a transformative variant of language didactics and examining vocational language education, critical foreign language didactics will be perceived as a research  program pertaining to the reflection on education and pedagogical activity (under the framework of critical pedagogy), teaching and learning (from the standpoint of the critical trend in general didactics), and  language education and its specificity within teaching and learning particular languages (in the context  of foreign language didactics). The final part of the paper will present methodological implications by  indicating potential directions for – and levels of – vocational language education analysis. It will also  offer an attempt at their further clarification aimed at a critical analysis of subject formation and forms  of subjectification.


Author(s):  
Dentik Karyaningsih ◽  
Puji Siswanto

Lecture courses in the English Language Education Study Program of STKIP Setiabudhi Rangkasbitung are still conducted in face-to-face class, so the students who do not attend lectures cannot know the pronunciation material at that time, because the Pronunciation course is a practical course in the English pronunciation system. The E-Learning Pronunciation is built so that lectures can be carried out anywhere and anytime without reducing the quality of the teaching and learning process. Therefore, the students who are left behind can continue to follow the Pronunciation course material, as well as habituating students in utilizing communication and information technology. E-Learning Pronunciation is important to be built to improve the ability of students’ pronunciation when doing distance learning, so that students are clearer and more firm in understanding Pronunciation so that there are no errors in English pronunciation. Participants in this study were first semester students of English education study programs. This study uses an experimental research design with the Prototype System development method and system of testing uses Black box testing.


Author(s):  
Camelia Suleiman

Arabic became a minority language in Israel in 1948, as a result of the Palestinian exodus from their land that year. Although it remains an official language, along with Hebrew, Israel has made continued attempts to marginalise Arabic on the one hand, and secutise it on the other. The book delves into these tensions and contradictions, exploring how language policy and language choice both reflect and challenge political identities of Arabs and Israelis. It combines qualitative methods not commonly used together in the study of Arabic in Israel, including ethnography, interviews with journalists and students, media discussions, and analysis of the production of knowledge on Arabic in Israeli academia.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 488-495
Author(s):  
Cláudia Martins ◽  
Sérgio Ferreira

AbstractThe linguistic rights of Mirandese were enshrined in Portugal in 1999, though its “discovery” dates back to the very end of the 19th century at the hands of Leite de Vasconcellos. For centuries, it was the first or only language spoken by people living in the northeast of Portugal, particularly the district of Miranda do Douro. As a minority language, it has always moved among three dimensions. On the one hand, the need to assert and defend this language and have it acknowledged by the country, which proudly believe(d) in their monolingual history. Unavoidably, this has ensued the action of translation, especially active from the mid of the 20th century onwards, with an emphasis on the translation of the Bible and Portuguese canonical literature, as well as other renowned literary forms (e.g. The Adventures of Asterix). Finally, the third axis lies in migration, either within Portugal or abroad. Between the 1950s and the 1960s, Mirandese people were forced to leave Miranda do Douro and villages in the outskirts in the thousands. They fled not only due to the deeply entrenched poverty, but also the almost complete absence of future prospects, enhanced by the fact that they were regarded as not speaking “good” Portuguese, but rather a “charra” language, and as ignorant backward people. This period coincided with the building of dams on the river Douro and the cultural and linguistic shock that stemmed from this forceful contact, which exacerbated their sense of not belonging and of social shame. Bearing all this in mind, we seek to approach the role that migration played not only in the assertion of Mirandese as a language in its own right, but also in the empowerment of new generations of Mirandese people, highly qualified and politically engaged in the defence of this minority language, some of whom were former migrants. Thus, we aim to depict Mirandese’s political situation before and after the endorsement of the Portuguese Law no. 7/99.


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